Oswald: Return of the King

by Edoardo Albert

  “Your father sends his greetings to you, princess, and reminds you that he has yet to receive all his wedding portion from you.”

  Oswiu stood up. “But I have given all we agreed.”

  “Not from you,” said the messenger. “The king knows you have given all you agreed, and more. But from the princess Rhieienmelth. She will know whereof I speak.”

  Oswiu turned to his wife. “What is he talking about?”

  “I will tell you later,” said Rhieienmelth. Turning to the messenger, she said, “Tell my father he will get my portion when I am ready to give it.” She stared at him. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes. You will give the king your portion when you are ready to give it.” When the princess nodded her approval of his rendering of the message, the messenger, with the skill born of years of practice, committed the words to memory, stamping them into his recall so that they could be pulled out again as sharp and distinct as when he first heard them.

  “As for me, I will of a surety send help,” said Oswald. “But wait before you return to Rhoedd of Rheged, that I might tell you when and of what kind.” He looked to his brother. “Well, warmaster, what say you?”

  “How large are the warbands that pray upon Rheged?” asked Oswiu. “And how many are there?”

  “They are large and there are very many,” said the messenger.

  “But how large and how many?”

  “The king said to tell you there were five hundred or more men in the warbands, and there were many, many warbands ravaging his country.”

  “Five hundred! That’s not a warband, that’s an army.”

  “Two or three armies,” said Eowa.

  Oswald, hearing him comment, nodded his agreement. “As Eowa said; so many men would be an army – and there would be no king left in Rheged to send a messenger asking for help.” He glanced to his brother. “What do you think, Oswiu? Fifty men, maybe two warbands?”

  “Probably just the one. But then, we have heard of raiders coming south from the lands of the Gododdin and raiding into our kingdom as well. Though King Medraut has pledged not to bear arms against us, either he has lied or he cannot restrain his young men. Either way, we may not let this matter lie.”

  “But I would not act as guard dog for another king, snapping at the intruders he will not take care of himself.”

  “He has not the strength.” The words came from Rhieienmelth. Her eyes were downcast, but feeling their gaze upon her, she looked up, and her eyes went to Oswald. “He has not the strength,” she repeated. “The warriors who flocked to my grandfather Urien, they have long taken ship, and my father has neither land nor gold to buy their replacements. Only daughters.” She paused, but her eyes did not leave Oswald’s. “I know he sold me to you like a brood mare, as bride for your brother, but have I not been worth the price?”

  “Yes,” said Oswald, and his voice was quiet.

  “Then I ask you to take pity on my father, more pity than I can give him, and send aid, that he might yet remain king of Rheged.”

  Oswald looked at her, this dark-haired, pale-skinned granddaughter of the king who had all but driven his ancestors back into the sea, and his own face grew pale under her gaze.

  “I – I would give you whatever you wish.”

  Oswald looked away, looked to his brother the warmaster, and his other counsellors, to ask their advice on what they should do. Rhieienmelth cast her gaze down again to the hands in her lap. Eowa, watching, looked to one face and another and another.

  “We could spend months chasing around Rheged trying to catch up with one or two warbands,” said Oswiu. “We would catch them in the end, but it would be weary work. I’m not sure what else we can do.”

  “Take their stronghold.” Oswald looked around at his counsellors. “We can spend our strength chasing their warbands around Rheged – and I suspect that there will always be further warbands ravaging the parts of Rheged furthest from where we are – or we can remove the heart and let the limbs wither and die. Take their stronghold.”

  Oswiu grinned at his brother. “That is perfect. The Gododdin have been impregnable upon Edinburgh rock for so long, they will no longer give thought to any attack upon it.”

  “But if it is impregnable, how can you take it?” asked Aidan, looking from one brother to the other.

  Again Oswiu smiled. “That is the great blessing of having a like stronghold ourselves. I have spent so long thinking on how attack might come against Bamburgh, and devising defence against it, that I know all the ways one might break into such a stronghold. But I warrant that the Gododdin, secure so long, have not given thought on this matter for many a year. There will be ways in. I am sure of it, brother.” He clasped his fist with his other hand. “It will be like this: either we find the way in, or we suffocate them upon their rock. When do we leave, brother?”

  “You will leave,” said Oswald. He inclined his head in answer to his brother’s expression of incredulous joy. “Yes, you will command, Oswiu. I have matters to attend to, and this will be your task, and its glory and gold shall be yours – and your wife’s.” Oswald nodded to Rhieienmelth. “If you wish, princess, when Oswiu has taken Edinburgh rock, you may take half the gold of the Gododdin for your father, that Rheged might have the warriors a kingdom of its glory, and the son of Urien, deserves.”

  “I thank you, brother; I thank you.” Oswiu stood from table. “If you give leave, I will go and start to make ready.”

  “I will come with you,” said Oswald. He put his arm around his brother’s shoulders. “I would not have it be said that you went against the Gododdin without any thing of which you had need.”

  Oswiu turned to Rhieienmelth. “Will you come too?”

  The princes rose and made her courtesy. “I will leave such as this to you.”

  “But you will come with me when I ride against the Gododdin?”

  “I will go or stay as my lord commands.”

  Oswiu smiled at her. Then, taking his brother’s arm, he left the hall. Rhieienmelth’s gaze followed them as they went out.

  Bishop Aidan made to rise as well, but to his surprise Eowa stayed him.

  “Earlier, I heard you tell a story, which I would have you explain, if you have time.”

  “Oh, you mean the tale of David?” Aidan sat down again.

  “Yes,” said Eowa. “I have not heard it before.”

  “There are many stories you have not heard before,” said Aidan.

  “But this one is of a king, a great and good king, who conceived a passion for the wife of one of his generals, Uriah the Hittite. Such was David’s desire for Bathsheba that he ordered Uriah to be at the forefront of battle in such place that, when the army fell back, he was left exposed, and killed. Then David took Bathsheba for his own, and the prophet of the Lord came to David and, to his face, spoke of God’s anger. And David repented.”

  “But did he keep the woman?”

  “Er, yes, he did.”

  “I thought so.” Eowa sat back. “Thank you.” He glanced at Princess Rhieienmelth. “I’m sure your husband knows the story.”

  “He heard it today, as did you.” Princess Rhieienmelth rose from where she had been sitting and went from the hall. Eowa turned back to Aidan.

  “Tell me more of your religion,” he said.

  *

  As they selected men, horses and weapons, and primed the steward to provide the necessary provisions for the expedition, Oswiu remembered what Oswald had said, and he asked him: “What matters do you have to attend to, brother?”

  Oswald, hand upon the flank of the horse he was inspecting, did not look around, but ran his hand through the animal’s short, thick hair.

  “It is time I took a wife,” he said.

  Chapter 2

  “Wessex is willing.” Acca allowed himself a smile as he brought the news; he made over even the subtle work of building alliances into the pattern of song and tale.

  Oswald, sat upon the mercy seat rendering judgment t
o the cases brought before him, looked to the scop standing beside him. Perched upon the back of the throne, Bran croaked, and turned his head to look down at Acca, his black eyes gleaming with interest. The scop stepped backwards under the scrutiny.

  “When Bran looks at me like that, I always think he is wondering whether to peck my eyes out now, or to wait until I am dead.”

  “He is,” said Oswald. “Wait, I will hear what you have to say after I have rendered judgment.” Oswald glanced up at the sky. The clouds threatened rain, and he drew his cloak tighter around his shoulders to ward off the wind. The mercy seat, the throne of judgment that accompanied him on all his travels around the kingdom from one royal estate to another, now sat by the side of the road – thankfully one of the old roads of the emperors rather than one of the wheel-rutted tracks that criss-crossed the country, ways as old as the land through which they wound, invariably on exposed ridges. Up ahead, the wagons waited to cross a ford, while the steward, a man whom all welcomed after Coifi’s disastrous spell in charge, assayed to make the crossing himself first to check if the water level was low enough for the wagons. While they waited, some of the local people who had come from their fields and houses to watch the royal procession go past, had made suit to the king’s household, asking for judgment in disputes between them. Rather than call them to his estate at Tadcaster Oswald directed his judgment seat be brought from the wagon and set up by the side of the road, that he might render justice.

  It was taking longer than he had expected. The steward had pronounced the ford safe, the wagons had crossed, and still Oswald sat upon the judgment seat, listening to the interminable workings out of a dispute over land, inheritance, outlawry and forfeiture. He was getting cold, and now Acca had come to him with this news. But he could not leave until judgment had been rendered. Oswald looked: there was another case after this – an anxious cluster of people waiting their turn for the king’s justice. He sighed, and turned to Acca.

  “Go on to Tadcaster. I will come to you there. When I have finished here.”

  So it was early evening, as the sun settled over the low line of hills in the west, by the time Oswald came to his hall at Tadcaster. But he had no need to call Acca to him, for the scop, seeing the king enter the hall, came rushing to him.

  “There is further news, lord. The messenger arrived while you gave justice to those extraordinarily stupid-looking farmers you spent so many hours with this afternoon.”

  Oswald sat down wearily. “They were not as stupid as they appeared. That is why I am so weary; whenever I thought I had heard all the case, and was about to render judgment, then another would delve into the soil of memory and pull out a like case, settled according to the age-old custom of the law. In the end, I fear we went back, through the days of the emperors, unto the time before the emperors even came to this land. If I had not put an end to it, we would like as not have returned to the days of the sons of Adam themselves. But enough of that. What news have you, Acca?”

  “A messenger arrived from your brother, lord.”

  Oswald sat up, looking with new intent at the scop. “What news?”

  Acca held out his hand. In it was a lump of grey rock.

  Oswald took and examined it, then looked at Acca.

  “This is his message? I have never known Oswiu to be laconic before.”

  “There is a message to accompany it, lord.” Acca cleared his throat and stood straighter, preparing to deliver the message he had taken from the exhausted messenger, whom he had sent to rest and eat and sleep.

  “He sends the message as a riddle, lord. ‘Rock of the rock, stone from stone; I have no voice, hear my song.’”

  Oswald looked up at Acca. “He’s taken it? He’s taken Edinburgh rock?”

  “Yes, lord, he has. This rock he took from it and sends to you, more valuable than the – very large – amounts of gold and silver he found upon the rock. For now, with Edinburgh rock taken, the chieftains of the Gododdin that yet remain have given pledge that they will render tribute to you, and hold your enemies as their enemies, and your friends as their friends, through all the years of their people.”

  Oswald smiled. “I knew he would succeed. Did Oswiu send word of how he did it?”

  “Apparently, it was through Rhieienmelth that he gained entrance to the rock. As granddaughter to Urien of Rheged, she sought audience with the chieftains of the Gododdin, and they had no leave but to grant it, for such is the honour in which Urien is still held by the people of the north. Your brother accompanied her, and together they much charmed the chieftains of the Gododdin…”

  “They would!”

  “…so that when they had been with them for a few days, it was possible for Oswiu to steal away in the night and open the gates of the stronghold to let his men, silently, in. When the sun rose, they stood waiting, with swords ready, about and inside the great hall of the Gododdin, and the chieftains, with only their knives to hand, had a simple and easy choice: to accept as overlord a man they already knew, and one wed to the granddaughter of Urien, or to fight and die. They chose well, and in return Oswiu took only that part of their treasury they were most willing to give up.”

  Oswald grimaced. “What you are willing to give up always seems greater when a sword is poking into your ribs.”

  “That is true, lord. But Oswiu, though he is young, still had the wit not to take everything – although the princess urged it – but rather to leave enough gold and silver that the chieftains of the Gododdin might yet hold their warriors to them and keep their thrones.”

  “Rhieienmelth wanted to take everything?”

  “She is a woman of strong desires, lord; the Gododdin brought shame to her father and her family. If she had commanded the men, Oswiu said, the only Gododdin left alive upon the rock would have been those she held to sell as slaves.”

  “It was a great thing she did, though, to gain entrance to the rock through the reverence the Gododdin held for her grandfather.”

  “There is more of Urien in her than her father, lord.” Acca smirked. “But not only Urien; Oswiu sends word that Rhieienmelth is with child.”

  Oswald nodded. He said nothing.

  “Is that not wonderful news, lord?”

  “Yes. Yes, wonderful.”

  “Oswiu therefore sends further word that he will go with Rhieienmelth to Ad Gefrin and Bamburgh and the estates in the north, until the princess is delivered of the child. He says that if it is a boy, he will name it for your father, Æthelfrith, giving the boy the same name root, Frith.”

  Oswald nodded. “He always worshipped Father. The great warrior, the Twister.” He fell silent for a moment, eyes turned inward. “The child, if it is a boy, will be ætheling. Rhieienmelth will be pleased; her son, blood of the blood of Urien, master of Bamburgh, High King.”

  “But that is why you must hear my other news, lord. Cynegils, the king of Wessex, sends word, seeking friendship with Northumbria and offering his daughter in marriage, together with a rich bride price.”

  Oswald pursed his lips. “Cynegils yet follows the old ways?”

  “Yes, lord; that is what I hear, although rumour says a priest named Birinus lives now in the land of the West Saxons with the permission of the king. He is mad, though.”

  “Mad?”

  “God mad, lord. Everywhere, he sees spirits walking, and evil creatures, and he falls into fits.”

  “He sounds like Coifi.”

  Acca laughed.

  “Does Cynegils listen to this Birinus? I will not have as wife the daughter of one who still follows the old gods.”

  “That he allows Birinus to live and teach in his kingdom suggests that Cynegils may be open to persuasion, lord, particularly if that would bring about so desirable a marriage for his daughter.”

  “What is her name?”

  “Er, I do not know, lord. Cynegils did not send her name, only what he would give as bride price.”

  “The West Saxons, I hear, have the custom that the king’s
wife is not a queen, and reigns not beside him, but is his consort only. That is not our way. If I married his daughter, she would be queen here. How old is she?”

  “She is of marriageable age, lord.”

  “Old enough to have children?”

  “Yes, so I believe.”

  Oswald nodded. “Very well. We shall go to Wessex, then, and see the king there, and his daughter, and see what he is willing to bring to the marriage feast.” He looked over to where Eowa sat by the fire listening to the talk of the hall, and called him over.

  “Your brother still fails to send the whole render that is due to me as his overking.”

  Eowa shrugged. “That is of no mind to me now, lord. He has abandoned me; I answer not for him.”

  “But yet you send word to him, and he to you.”

  “The accounts of my lands, lands that are yet mine, lord. He sends to me of them, and I answer with judgments. Is that not to be permitted me while I remain your hostage?”

  “No, I welcome it, for it enables me to send word, through you, to your brother. Tell him this: I still wait the tribute, the whole tribute that he promised me as his lord. And tell him this also, for it will be of interest to him: I travel, this six month, to the land of the West Saxons, mayhap to wed the daughter of the king there; of a surety to enter into friendship with him.”

  “That was ever his greatest fear, lord, since a fearful dream that was sent him, that his enemies would encircle him, tying him down with many ropes and leaving him as one dead upon the battlefield, helpless as the slaughter bird approaches.”

  As if he knew he had been mentioned in the conversation, Bran unfurled his head from wing and sleep and regarded the Mercian with cold eye.

  Oswald held out his arm and the raven stepped down upon it from his perch.

  “Make sure you send Penda this news; and that my brother has taken the stronghold of the Gododdin, and my writ now runs to the Painted People. Tell him that also.”